


Silenced: tell the truth

by LaughingStones



Series: Cavernstuck [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Bless my beta, Bondage, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Cavernstuck, Demons call it the jet quadrant instead of pitch, Demonstuck, Instead of Deathlaw Silencer, M/M, My beta says this is sort of Hurt/Comfort, Some angst, Stop stalling and confess already Silenced, The Grand Highblood goes by Silenced now, The Signless is known as Peaceway, Warning for dreamt/remembered torture of Sufferer, the torture is only in the first scene but it's kinda graphic I guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 22:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3464246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughingStones/pseuds/LaughingStones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a most familiar motherfucking dream.  You've had it more times than you can rightly recall, for sweeps on sweeps now, a longer span than a shitblood's natural lifetime.</p><p>He's strung up on the flogging jut, bleeding.  The stubborn mirthless traitor is still trying to talk, to reason, even as the lash draws magma-red lines across his body, ripping his tattered wings further, breaking his voice into choking cries and curses.  You stand silent behind her throne, watching.<br/>_______</p><p>In the Long Sleep, Silenced dreams.  When a visitor enters his dream, the mutant heretic he condemned long ago, he must decide whether to listen to his regrets or his pride.</p><p>Either way, he's going to be a dick about it.  (But so is Peaceway.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silenced: tell the truth

It's a most familiar motherfucking dream. You've had it more times than you can rightly recall, for sweeps on sweeps now, a longer span than a shitblood's natural lifetime.

He's strung up on the flogging jut, bleeding. The stubborn mirthless traitor is still trying to talk, to reason, even as the lash draws magma-red lines across his body, ripping his tattered wings further, breaking his voice into choking cries and curses. You stand silent behind her throne, watching. Sometimes the mob is there, jeering at the condemned mutant, but as your attention narrows in on him the rest of the crowd fades out of the dream, along with the throne. It's just you, watching as the rope of lava rises up and snakes around his wrists where the chains are, keeping your silence as he begins to burn and scream curses into the night.

The smell of burning flesh never bothered you before you watched him die. Now it sickens you, twists in your belly where mirth was used to live. It was no immediate thing, the death of your mirth; it took tens of sweeps for all the warring thoughts you had on him to get their unsettlement wound through all the parts of you, til you found that even in death he'd poisoned you, turned you against yourself and your Empress's cause. It's hard to care about conquest, the bloodmirth and slaughterfrenzy, when the motherfucking feeling comes creeping back to you all the time that you're only half-alive, and killing's no way to give your dead parts life again.

Nausea slides through you in the dream as that smell hits your nostrils and his screams go wordless. Your throat is dry and he's still an upright heretic and traitor, you can't stop the execution. A long stretch of sweeps passed, the dream coming again and again, before you realized you wanted to stop it at all, not that the want makes a lick of motherfucking difference. You have never been able to interfere or change this Caliborn-cursed dream in any important detail.

Gradual as coals falling to ash, it occurs to you that you're watching yourself have this dream, and that awareness just might up and afford you a mite more power in it than usual. The thought is a tightness in your jaw, a tension in your thorax, and your tail is low and uneasy when you stalk forward to the jut, wings folded tight at your back. In all the sweeps of being up and plagued with this memory, nothing has changed, and you cannot find trust that shifting it will go easy now.

He's halfway to gone, doesn't notice or react at all when you leap to catch the top of the jut, dangle by one hand, eyeing the lava binding him, killing him. Dreamlike, you know what you have to do.

With one hand, you reach out and grab the molten stone wrapped around his wrists, and pull. You know it hurts your dream-flesh, but you can't really feel it, and even if this changes nothing _you will do_ as your motherfucking whimsy takes you.

The dream wavers and shifts.

You are hanging by your wrists, alone on the jut, suspended by bonds that scorch you to the bone. The pain is phenomenal, and your throat is raw with screaming. It might be that you're him right now, or you might be yourself in his place, you can't be sure.

None of this is any breed of motherfucking shock or novelty. This piece too you've dreamt before, not near as often as the first, but enough to be well and heartily sick of it. At least it doesn't normally last long; you'll be out of it soon, once you're done screaming and dying. You're darkly amused to find the attempt to change something only pushed the dream on into its other form.

Then the pain stops.  Even with the haze of rage-fear-anguish-regret tangled through your pan, that gets your attention.  Bewildered, still heaving for breath and with tremors running all across your body, (and it is your body, you can feel the weight of your own horns as you move your head), you open your eyes.

He's standing there.  Whole and unbloodied, unbroken, he stands on the ground before the jut, wings tucked tidily back, head tilted up at you.  He's robed and hooded, casting his face in shadow, but something in his stance raises up the incredulous suspicion that he's got his judgment on of you.  The thought twists your mouth in a snarl and you let the sound of it out low and full, a grating, rattling rumble woven thick with overtones as should make any sane lowblood cower and flee like a startled hopbeast.

He snorts at you.  Reaching up, he pulls back the hood, slipping his tiny motherfucking horns free of the holes, and shakes his head.  "You honestly have no idea what you're doing, do you?"

"What heinous noise are you being to make now, traitor?" you growl, and then stop.  His eyes, you remember the burning red of his eyes more clear than anything, but for a moment -  For a brief second as he stared up at you his eyes were strange, blank white straight through with no color at all.  Now they're proper yellow and mutant red, just as you recall, but you are suddenly unclear and all full of questions.

"Here you are, hanging from the jut like the war criminal you are, as though deep in your pan you believe this is what you truly deserve. Yet the first time you see me, do I hear an apology, or any form of intelligent dialogue? No. Instead, you've all the self-control and courtesy of an imp who's missed a meal.  Not exactly impressive."

Snarling again, you jerk against the chains binding your wrists. There is no metal as should hold against a greater demon's strength, not one of your age and might, but what binds you does not give. "No apologies do I owe any worthless heretical mutant," you hiss at him, and you could wish the words rang wholly sound to your own ears. (Mutant he is, and heretic, and yet he is _not_ worthless and you _could_ owe - ) "Nor is this any of my motherfucking doing! Who controls their dreams all full and true? You mock me to say it and these chains are to being a grace for you, else my claws should find your flesh and bury deep, sinful scum that you are." Your eyes burn on the shape of him, you want to devour him entire.

This confrontation is nothing you remember, and bears no resemblance to anything you might have wished for in a weak moment.  You've never dreamt this before, and his behavior has all the pride and fierceness in it you recall, but the shattered look of desolation as came on him by the end and presses him low in every dream you've had - that's flat out missing. Unease sparks at the back of your pan, the flash of white eyes coming together with the upright way he holds himself: there's something in this as sits wrong with you - no, not just in your estimation. _There's something wrong in this_.

He raises an eyebrow at you, skeptical and composed. "I didn't say you were controlling the dream. I merely said that some buried part of you must think you deserve this - unless you find being bound to a flogging jut appealing for other reasons, I suppose."

"Fortunate you are this is after being a simple dream," you say, showing fangs, "because motherfucker, were I free of these chains you would scream for me real short-like." Even as you say it, your bloodpusher aches at you. Could be that you might be able to hurt him, or could be not. You've never found difficulty at it before, causing hurt where it was being deserved, but if you heard him scream as he does on the jut, with you the cause - This is a dream, it's no different from any of the rest, and no reason to it for such a powerful effect on you. ( - you don't know that it would do you well to hear.)

He rolls his eyes at you all insolent and stands straight-backed, unbowed before your threats. "You can't kill me, Silencer, I'm already dead."

You frown down on him, troubled.  That is no such statement as any dream phantom should know to make, not so matter-of-fact.  Distracted by it, you make him no answer.

His eyes narrow on you, flicker over the height and length of you, dwell on your face, then blink and his head goes back a little in surprise before he laughs.  "You didn't even realize, did you?  I may be visiting your dream, but you're not dreaming me.  I'm perfectly real. Well, as real as a dead person can be.  Did you fail to notice my eyes?"

They go blank white again and you stare.

This... you had no expectation of.  Twin Serpent God, you had no thought of it even being possible.  Peaceway the rebel heretic stands before you his very self, no dream and no lie, and you cannot say if you yearn more to claw his face off or (kneel and beg his forgiveness _NO_ ) pretend amused indifference to see the snarl such pretense would bring to his lips.

Words make no space on your tongue, all thought of speech is fled as you stare at him.  He waits a moment for some response, condescending smile fading as you stay mute.  His expression is cool and considering as he cocks his head at you.

"So quiet, Silencer?  How unlike you!  Faced with a victim of your injustice, at last that cruel voice of yours is the one to fall silent.  Who could have guessed the terrible Deathlaw Silencer would fear a ghost?"

That gets at you, slips through the crack in your armor and jabs you hard.  Your lips peel back to bare fangs and the growl rolling out from you is fit to shake mountains down.  "I fear no motherfucking traitor, no shitlicking mutant scum!" Again you wrench at the chains holding you midair, beat your wings to get some slack, change the angle, all your struggle to no effect. "Let me down from here and I'll show you just how little I fear you, heretic."

For a second his face twists into a snarl, his blunt fangs gleam and a rattling growl rises in his thorax. Then he closes his eerie white eyes, breathes deep, wipes the fighting rage away as though he'd never been tempted at all by your taunt. "No. We could tear each other to shreds without changing a single thought in either mind. Even in death, there are better ways to spend my time."

His eyes are in living color again as he gazes up at you, level and steady. "I came because you acted benevolently toward me in your dream, for the first time, as far as I'm aware. I had thought there was some chance of a useful dialogue taking place, but it appears I was overly optimistic. Perhaps in another fifty sweeps it will be worth checking again." He turns and steps away, and -

Fifty sweeps before you see him again, you cannot even fucking contemplate. Fifty sweeps more of this heinous motherfucking dream, of watching the bloody screaming death of a worn imitation of him, close enough to make you sick but without the benefit of the vivid realness in every word this one speaks. Another fifty sweeps and you may just give up and die, you're far past old enough and sleeping finally, none would wonder when your body turned to ash - And you are sure to your bones that even with the both of you dead he would never bother to speak with you again.

The sound out your lips is like to an imp stepped on by an ogre, a shameful little cut-off thing. The noise of it in your ears curls your lips back in disgust that you have sunk so low, and when he turns, frowning puzzlement to you, you snarl at him the rage of it, of what he drives you to.

His thick brows snap down and his lips press tight. "If you wish me to remain for some reason, I strongly advise you to strive for some element of courtesy in your behavior. Not behaving like an angry beast would be a good start."

It's motherfucking hard not to sneer at him, but at the same time, you're so unholy tired. Time has passed since you left your position to your descendent and slept, but you've no notion if it's perigees or sweeps gone by, and you have been struggling against your own unruly memories without cease until you're sick with it. You know if you get your full honesty on here, he will see you humbled, and you are yet too proud for that. It's a narrow space away from being this Serpents-cursed tired to not caring at all, though. Your eyes close and you hang in your chains, limp and still.

"Well. Well enough, then." He sounds a mite startled, and your lips twitch at the corners - tired or no, what's funny is still fucking funny, and confusing a rebel heretic will never not be funny. "If you wish me to stay, please be so good as to indicate why."

With a deep breath heaved in and sighed out, you master yourself, your frayed edges, your weary rage and regret, and answer. "As I get on my recollection," you rumble at him, tone all dry, "you never had any reluctance about you at speech of an elucidatory sort, though your answering of questions was not so straight and easy.  Well, little heretic, I have all manner of motherfucking questions to me, and none of them calling after betrayal of anyone clade to you this time."

"I will answer at least one question on the condition that you call me by name.  Do me that courtesy and I will return it, Silencer, though you've done little enough to deserve the consideration.  Your mindless insults are tiresome."

"If it's the courtesy of a right name you seek to do, you're missing at mine yet.  Silencer was my name, true enough, but is no more."

Taken aback, he blinks up at you, then glares as you say nothing more.  "If you want me to use it, you'll have to tell me what it is, as you perfectly well know."

You hold your silence, looking down on him with the faintest mocking smile.

He raises his brows at you and narrows his eyes a touch, unimpressed but not about to start yelling over it.  Too bad.   "Petty.  If you don't tell me, I'll simply call you 'Silence'."

That takes you by surprise, and you throw your head back to laugh.  "Close enough," you tell at him, smirking.

He's puzzled by that and you see the flick of his eyes pass over you again, reevaluating.  "Very well," he says after a moment.  "Use my name and ask your question."

"Which name is it you'd have me speak?  Sufferer, mayhap?"

His eyes widen, his brows crease.  "Sufferer?" he says faintly.

Of course he's never had it said at him before, he's been dead.  "They called you so, after, made you a motherfucking unholy martyr."

"Sufferer," he repeats. He has a look to him you recognize, though you can't name the reason for it. It's the look of a demon who's just taken a blade to the gut, a stunned shock that has yet to register pain. His eyes are distant, his mouth slack, and when he speaks after a space his voice is very low.  "I named myself for my vocation. I thought it fit well enough... And after all I did, all my work and struggle, the negotiation and compromise and pushing on in the face of constant rejection - and we were so close, so close in the end, we came so far... After all that, they remember me for my death and not my lifelong message."

Oh.  Huh.  If you think on it, it seems to you that could well mightily trouble a demon so powerfully devoted to his principles, however heretical they might be.

He's struggling with it, you can see it in his face.  His eyes are fixed on nothing as he murmurs to himself, "If all I worked for is forgotten, is there a point to having lived?"

Often when you were interrogarroting, back in the war, you could sense the first moment when a subject could be broken.  It's a gift of yours, to know the words to say, which way to push, to shatter resistance whole a fair space earlier than brute force alone would do.  He's there now, you can feel it.  All you have to do is tell at him how his clade suffered after his death, no lies even would you need to speak for him to condemn himself, break himself harder than any skilled cruelty could do.

Your arms ache, and you shift in your chains, tense your muscles to try to get some relief.  The problem resting heavy on you is, you cannot up and persuade yourself to want him broken.  Pricked and bebothered, yes, you want to dig at him all sly and underhanded until he forgets his prissy precision of speech and snarls aloud at you, full-voiced, until he flies at you with his claws and you can kick him in the face.  For that, you cannot have him breaking.

"Dolorosa's all at living yet," you say, and he stills.

"That much I knew.  Yours are not the only dreams I've walked in. - But how do _you_ know?"

Odd that he should question that, and you in your high position as far as he should know. "They report so to me, as should be," you say, frowning at him.

He slumps, head bowing again, and no reason to it that you can guess. "Then it failed," he says soft, and you have no notion of what he speaks.

"She sleeps for now," you say, "as her acolytes among the jadebloods were shouted down on waking her when she was full healed."

His eyes lift to fix on yours.  "Healed?  What did you do to her?"

No surprise that he should take it so, but you sneer at him nonetheless.  "Naught but good, for truth.  She was wounded by ogres, clearing out the caverns a few sweeps back."

"Why not wake her after the healing sleep?"

"And that speaks at you entire, lit- mm," you catch yourself before the address. Likely he'd stay for the answer despite another insult, but you can't afford at the chance he'd walk away after. "In main, the jades favor peace, and now they have it they fear her waking would bring down chaos as she seeks to enact your heretical thoughts on the hemocaste."

He is wide eyes and bewilderment, he is all confusion.  "The hemocaste?  But -  That's wonderful, of course, it's the lowblooded cannon fodder, the so-called 'lesser' demons who suffer most from the war -  But I thought she understood that as long as this war continues, true justice and equality are unreachable.  It is vital that we work first toward a real and dependable truce with the angels before we can hope to make any progress on the -  Why are you laughing?"

"Little martyr, you are well and truly behind on the haps of the time since you up and perished."

"Goodness, what a shock that is to hear," he says at you, voice acidic as a crater lake.  "Is it possible to share any useful specifics, or would you prefer to hang there and amuse yourself indefinitely?"

"I'd hate to up and spoil the joke," you say, grinning, though it takes some effort.  By the double god, your arms are in agony and your wrists don't even bear speaking of.  Now that you think on it, it feels more real than the pain is like to even in these dreams, and that is unrighteous odd.  "But it seems I've been all at answering your questions, and not a one have you answered to me."

Brows pulling low, he gives you a dark look.  "Very well," he says all clipped and short.  "I will trade an answer for an answer.  Ask."

It's tempting to push him a little more, now he's not in a place so delicate, but you're not so young and heedless as to favor what's funny over what's necessary.  There are things as you need to know.  A badass you may be, and a figure of terror in most eyes, but dream or no, you are strung up helpless before a demon with the least reason of any to wish you well.  And as you've no intention to wake, dreams are near enough to being your reality now, and worth a thought on self-preservation.

"I was bound up all in lava before you showed your face," you tell at him, and shift in illustration, chains rattling above your head.  "It got its shift and change on when you appeared.  Might you be at knowing the reason why?"

"Why you're here in the first place?" he says all seeming polite and courteous, "or why the lava became more innocuous bonds?  No, I suppose even you're self aware enough to guess at the answer to the first.  The question of the lava, then.  Simple enough - I merely assumed that rational conversation would be easier with someone not in agonizing pain."  His eyes are hard and bright as he sends a sharp smile at you.  "An assumption we do not seem to share."

It was never rational conversation you sought from your holy work on heretics, rebels and traitors, but you will not follow his taunt to stray aside of your chosen track. (You have nothing to apologize for, you did your duty by Empress and empire and no regrets will you admit to.) "You assumed," you say steady at him, "and my dream was all after following your desire? How's that to being a thing that works?"

"Surely you're aware that dreamers and the dead share Calliope's realm," he says, patronizing as though he wasn't speaking of your very own faith and scripture. Well you know it, but no scripture ever said as how they got their self-awareness on. The vision you always had of it was of shades drifting alongside dreamers, all lost in their own phantom worlds. He goes on, "Having dwelt here some sweeps now, I've obtained a certain amount of skill at manipulating my surroundings. Of course, being dead helps; I suspect living dreamers are generally incapable of that sort of control. Makekind and the Summoner are both quite proficient at it."

He has his control on over your dreams.  That... is not the most pleasant and easing news to get your understanding of just at present.  One thing it does clarify, though.

"So it's after being your will that I'm still hung up on this jut," you say, calm and even.

"It seemed prudent, as irrational physical attacks would also substantially impede intelligent conversation."

Your lip lifts to snarl at him all on its own, and he raises an eyebrow back. Never have you been one to shrink from hardship or pain, you push yourself as hard as any, but it has you raging that this mutant traitor in all his motherfucking gall will stake himself the moral high ground over freeing you from the pain of burning when he merrily leaves you to hang til your arms snap off. At the same time, something eager and hot and black as jet sparks up in your gut for it, that he should treat you so. That particular sensation you're not eager to think on just yet.

"And you want that I should believe at that for your reason," you say, heavy and sweet with scorn. "When a hundred other ways would keep you just as firm in your safety from my claws, and yet not leave me all getting intimate with this pain up in my arms. Got the suspicion strong in me that is _naught but a handy motherfucking excuse_ to see some pain done on the one as was responsible for all yours."

He frowns at you, eyes flicking up to the chains that hold you suspended. "That shouldn't - you can't be in pain, not in any noticeable way. This is a dream for you, sensation is always muffled in dreams. The most you should be feeling is discomfort."

At that you cannot help but laugh, angry mirth rumbling out of you that the filthy little heretic traitor thinks he can change what's so just by saying it. He thinks he's got more knowledge on him of what you're at feeling than you do, and that is some fucking hilarious shit there.

"Discomfort, he says at me! _Discomfort_ , says this little nubby motherfucker who declares at having the power to control dreams, yet _doesn't bother_ to up and note when what the dreamer is feeling is nearer to anguish than not. Discomfort! No necessity in such a pretense, motherfucker, just get your confessiannihilation on that it's revenge you're all looking for." By the last phrase, your voice has slid low and seductive, savoring the words.

That gets at him, slams in under his defenses right solid. His eyes go wide, then his jaw clenches and the pain in your arms and wrists - and all through your shoulders and the muscles along your thoraxic support column, as you hadn't really noted aching yet - vanishes all away, no hint left at it. Things shift around you of a sudden, and then you are standing on your own motherfucking walknubs on the stone base of the jut, hands bound in front of you and chained down.

"I was not seeking _revenge_ ," Peaceway says at you hard and tight. His hands are in fists and his wings are all mantled up behind him, tail lashing so you see it on one side of him, then the other. A long tail he had on him, you do recall, and abrupt-like find yourself wondering at what that might speak on for other bits of his anatomy. It is no notable help for your jet-tinged frame of mind that his slitted eyes and thin lips have their match on by his tone of voice, which is fit to chew stone and spit magma. "Causing pain for one's own gratification is as sick as causing it for any other reason, and in this situation vengeance would be nothing more than a flimsy excuse to hurt an enemy under the rationalization of punishment for an injustice. I will not sink to your level, no matter what the provocation."

You loosen your stance, slouch on one hip and smirk at him good and slow. "Oh no? And where's the reason at being for your visit here in the first place, if not in the hopes to _see me crawl?_ "

He _snarls_ at you. Oh, that is a motherfucking joy to hear, sending eager prickles up your neck, down into the bases of your wings so they fan and mantle a little at him. Double God, if you don't find a way to rein it in, you're like to up and make a royal mirthful fool of yourself in a right short span here. "As I already fully explained, I came because you changed your behavior! For the first time since I lived, I entertained the thought that speaking to someone might actually change something for the better, and yet I find you just as full of derogatory slurs and casteism and empty highblood rhetoric as ever!"

All abrupt, he heaves in a deep breath, shakes his wings back to rest, and uncurls his hands real deliberate, presses them against his thighs. His narrow eyes burn on your face. "I utterly despise you," he says, quiet but intense. "Just to make that entirely clear."

Holy motherfucking Serpent God, it takes you hard, sends a shudder all through you.  There's a rasping, grinding undertone in his voice that sings sweet rage at you, resonating from your horns all down to the base of your tail.  The control in him, that he hates you so strong but yet locks it down flat, it drives you half wild, and you growl softly at him, grinning fierce and sharp.

"That I can well and certain see," you say, "it has its clarity on most firm to note.  Which of us is it you figure all hates the other moreso?"

Some of that fire fades out of his expression, leaving a wary look, and you curse your fool tongue for stupid blatant flirtation.

"I hardly think it matters," he says stiffly.  "It is quite plain to me now that no useful discourse is likely to take place here.  I am wasting my time.  Please excuse me."

Again, a-motherfucking-gain he turns away from you, and you cannot muster what it would take to hold back the howl of rage.  It tears out of you like rolling thunder, and you see the tremble of his wings as they try to flare up all in fighting display for response, but he pulls them in tight, he will not let show the jet-black hatred he bears you.  He will hold it as platonic and he is leaving and your rage _will not stay him_.

You are no heedless, reckless imp, you have lived six hundred sweeps and more and you've a grip on your self control better than most would credit due to your use of it is so rare.  It takes a greater effort of will than you've made in some time to silence the rattling snarl that curls your lips, but you master yourself quick and cold. What is needed to keep him here is ease and simplicity itself to guess, but not so much to speak.  Still you will tell it at him aloud and you will do it fast, for necessity not to be left on your lone in this ungracious wretched dream for the next fifty sweeps.

Even as you breathe to say it, he wavers in your sight, and you force the word from your lips. "Peaceway - "

\- and he vanishes.

Caught breathless, you stare at the space where he was. In true honesty, you thought as that would up and stop him, the sign of respect that calling him by name is all to be. So sick of insults he was, you had a certainty on you -

Appears you were most wrong in your estimation.

If you'd thought on it previous, you'd have gotten your assumption on that your response to this eventuality would be fury, raging all up in you.  Turns out you're just - blank.  Empty, tired, maybe.  The frustrated jet feelings that were welling up in you have slipped away into pure, chilly weariness.

You sit down on the edge of the stone block, cuffed hands trailing chain in your lap, and you close your eyes.

 

 

Safely outside the bounds of the dream, you glance back at the dreamer for his reaction. It is not what you expected. Instead of cursing you in the most deplorable of terms, he is still, staring. After a moment his massive shoulders slump and he sits, purple-scaled wings slack behind him.

Even for a greater demon he is vast, big and deadly enough that even now that you're dead, you had to keep careful hold of your instincts in his presence or spend the time alternately bristling and cringing. It was not at all helpful that you remember him from your capture and questioning. Despite the time that has surely passed since in the living world, you remember better than you would prefer the way he worked his spells of pain on you. At first he showed you only contempt and scorn, but as you held out and refused to answer questions, speaking instead on your own preferred topics in the belief that even a highblood could reach true understanding, he began to look at you differently. He stopped mocking your intelligence and began arguing your points. When you refused to accept that the hemocaste was divinely ordained, making cogent arguments against it, he tried to force you to recant. Failing, he became angry and left you in the hands of his lieutenants, washing his hands of you.

Your failure to reach him, his failure to listen, should not have stung as it did. He is despicable, there is nothing worthwhile lost there. (Even now you can't fully believe that. Every demon is worthy, every one has value, even the most high and wicked were innocent imps once, and you think a thread of that virtue still lives at their core even if you don't know how to reach it.)

You would not have thought he could look so... worn. His hair is a wild aureole around his head, swallowing half his long, twisting horns, his clothes are bright with color and jewels despite the grim dream setting, and his face paint is as disturbing as ever, but his eyes are closed, his huge hands lie still and slack. Curved to one side, his tail is limp on the stone, not even the tip flicking. He sits hunched, head low, with no sign of noticing or resenting the metal cuffs on his wrists. Now that you've left, he'll be able to break those off easily, if the dream doesn't dissolve first without you there to maintain it. Actually, it seems a bit odd that he hasn't tested his bonds again yet.

He said something, just before you stepped away, that sounded almost like your name, but that is wholly unlikely.

That sound he made when you first attempted to leave, it was helpless, almost desperate. Clearly from his reaction, he hadn't intended to make it, so it was entirely genuine, too. It is not the sort of noise anyone would believe Deathlaw Silencer was capable of making. (What other sorts of noises might he make - _no_. Your hatred for him is _platonic_ , you cannot allow anything else, he's as corrupt as he is old, the Condesce's loyal killer.)

He didn't want you to leave, and you can't help but wonder why. Curiosity is not enough to drive you back into his dream, though. ( _Fuck_ you don't want to go back in _you don't want to_ \- ) The possibility that you might get somewhere - that is what pushes you to make the choice. Building relationship sometimes must necessarily come first in order to win the opportunity to speak honestly and be heard. If for some reason Silencer desires your presence, that is an opening you would be unwise to ignore.

Dead you may be, but that doesn't mean you're going to stop working for your cause.

You step back in.

 

 

Fifty motherfucking sweeps, you're thinking, and it's a cold and a dull, bitter thought, when a voice sounds right next to you and you start so hard you near fall over, wings snapping out on instinct but useless when you're sitting down. Wild-eyed, hackles raised, you catch yourself on your bound hands and stare over as he stops and blinks, standing beside you just past the stretch of your chains.

"I beg your pardon," he says with this tiny little smirk that is full and wholly reprehensible, you want to claw it off his smug face, holy Caliborn and Calliope _he came back_. You snarl at him glad and hateful, jet all lighting up the core of you, welling up and running through your blood like air to breathe and heat to sustain you.

"I didn't mean to startle you so badly," he says in all sweet courtesy, he is _mocking_ you and it is maddening glorious. "I merely wanted to ask, what was it that you said as I left?"

Here is your chance, all unexpected as it is, and you do not allow yourself to hesitate before you take it. "I was all at speaking your name," you say at him, biting back the growl it wants to come out on. "Went and took off before I could be to getting the rest out."

Now he's the one as gets on his startled look. Seems you were right about that stopping him, had you kicked it off your tongue sooner. "What is it you intended to say?"

If the tone isn't right, he won't hear, won't know, so you gentle yourself, soften all down in face and voice and the set of your limbs, so long and thick to his. He will hear this as you mean to speak it, he will _motherfucking comprehend_.

"'Peaceway, wait,'" you say, quiet as a plea, and you hold his gaze. Well and fully aware are you that's more inspiring of pity than hatred, but fuck, he's not about to go pale for you, no fear at that, and if you can set the tiniest spark of pity up in him, it'll make the jet all the more notable. Easier to swing from pity to hate than platonic to not, anyway.

His red eyes go round with shock and he stares at you like you just started up singing a jadeblood's hatching rhyme. He steps back from you, sudden and jerky, turns, stands a moment, off-balance like he can't even think what to do with himself. When he turns back his eyes are slits and his teeth are showing, holy serpents you did make impression all on him -

"So help me kind Calliope, if you are manipulating me for one of your shitty jokes I will walk the fuck out of here and never set walk-nub back, is that absolutely clear," he hisses in your face, and a jet shiver goes through your wings and out to horns and claws, it is a fucking _delight_. "If you are trying to set me up for some pan-numbingly stupid trick, allow me to save you the effort and - "

"No motherfucking tricks and no japery," you answer, and for all your attempts at gentling, his antagonism has the grate and rumble back in your voice. Can't help it with him up and acting all jet back to you. "No joke except that the Serpents wrought on all us creatures when they shaped us as we are, and riotous that one is!"

He watches you narrow-eyed, trying to puzzle out the meaning in your words, and you stare back and make him no help at it. "You have no reason for any interest in my company," he says after a space. "So if this is not an attempt at tricking me into anything or simply confusing me for a laugh - What's your real motive for wanting me here?"

Motherfuck. Now you shift your eyes off from him, you can't be looking him in the face on this. The entire truth you will not say straight out, nor would it please him to staying, but a simple lie you scorn to speak as dull and unfunny. A piece of the truth will serve best, but even that is no easy thing to get your speech on. It's an effort of will to up and say it aloud.

"I am sick to motherfucking death of being all to watching you die." It comes out your mouth heavy, and the honesty of it drives heat to your face - fuck if you're not all to blushing outright, a hysterical piece of foolery at your age. Good thing it's well hid under your paint. ...That is, assuming you are all to being decked out in your paint, it's a dream and you cannot tell from the feel on your face - One hand twitches automatic to rise and check, tugs on the cuff to the other as you'd forgotten about, Serpents curse it. But you're a mite fraught now, fretting to know if you are naked and revealed or no, so you pretend at an itch on the cheek facing away from him and lift both hands, casual as you can, to rub fingers over the skin. Praise the double god, the smooth, slick feel of sealed paint under your fingertips is blessed familiar.

The heretic is staring at you yet, fixed still as ancient earth. You narrow your eyes and set your gaze back at him, daring him to note the color on your neck, your ears, skin as has no shield of paint. He has no thought at that, he is all attentive and searching of your face.

"Why?" he breathes at length. "Why would that bother you? You've killed and tortured enough over the sweeps I would expect dreaming of it to be less than notable. For that matter, why did you make an effort to change your dream of it? Are you actually feeling guilty? Of course that would explain you being chained in my place, a desire to make restitution and balance accounts by undergoing the same ordeal, but surely you've dreamed of other executions, so is it - "

"So I've not," you say, curt, and no more.

He squints at you, brows drawn and face twisted up in puzzlement. "You're telling me mine is the only death you dream of."

"And could I know the way to wipe it out entire, I would and never see it more," you growl. "But on and on it finds its mirthless return and slips back into my pan, revisits me until I - " Lip curling up, you flash a silent snarl at the bare, rocky ground before you. No need to finish for him anyway, he has his understanding to him already, or thinks he does.

"It haunts you," he says, and his face is lighting up so as you want to bite it, replace the rising glow in him with a lick of angry fire. " _I_ haunt you! I actually got through to you! You finally believe me, about the necessity of peace with the angels, and - "

He cuts off because you're smirking, good humor restored by how wrong he is, and right in bits he'll never guess.

"Not even fucking close, little martyr."

"No?" Now he does flare up, and the frustrated tension to his movements is all you hoped for. "Why else, then?" he snaps, waving his arms, wings half-spreading as his tail lashes. "What possible reason would you have to regret my wrongful death unless at least some part of my message got through to you?"

"Not that one," you say, smiling wicked and smug at him because he'll never guess and you'll put off telling it at him long as you're motherfucking able (because well and sure you know it will not go well when he hears).

He glares at you in your mirth, opens his mouth and hisses like a steam vent, and you roll your head lazily to provoke at him a little more.  For a second he looks about to go for you, teeth and claws, but then he pulls that cursed control on over him again and flicks his wings back to their neat fold.

"Fine," he says, tight and precise. Angered though he is that bright will of his shines through every tiniest thing he does - he will not be loud at you, he will not speak uncouth, not because he regards you well in any respect, but because his principles rule him to be so.  "For reasons you are reluctant to reveal, you are troubled by repeatedly dreaming of my unjust demise.  You have yet to explain what this has to do with desiring my presence.  Even if the dream dismays you to the point where _any_ company seems desirable, you have only to wait until you wake for all to be well again."

You look on him a long moment, then shrug to yourself.  What's it matter if the dead heretic knows a bit about what's passed in recent sweeps?  "No one wakes from the long sleep unless they get at being woken by another," you say, dropping it on him real casual.

The expression he turns on you is a motherfucking marvel, and you grin all full of teeth as he gapes and scowls and can't tell to take you serious or no.

"Why in Calliope's name would you - would _any_ highblood - willingly enter that sleep?  Unless - were you badly injured?"

"And who'd up and have skill enough to do at me such damage?" you say, by right full disdainful of the notion.  Many injuries you've known in your time,  but forty sweeps at least since the last bad enough to note, and the only ones ruinous enough to push you into a healing sleep were long ages ago, when you were young enough to wake all automatic on your own.

"Then why?" he demands.

You snort. "You should be at asking something I might be inclined to get my answer on for."

He flashes fang at you.  "I'm uncertain such a question exists.  After all, providing answers would be helpful, and you far prefer to irritate."

"I gave you news of your clade, and that unasked."

His frown goes thoughtful on you.  "True.  Entirely uncharacteristically, you did.  I am half tempted to believe it was merely to bewilder me.  Nonetheless."  After a moment, he says, "You sleep, and will not say why.  You dream of this," he waves a hand at the jut, at your chains, "and will not say why.  And you want me here."  He holds his silence a space.  "You did seem - shall I say, enlivened - by my return.  Well.  If you explain why you want me here, assuming no part of the reason involves my humiliation or other suffering, I will keep you company for a little while."

Double God, you wish you'd not given away how very strong on you that desire has its hold.  No surprise he'd use any weakness against you - although in honesty it seems it'd grate on his principles to do so.  When you think on it, you are surprised, a little eager jolt of jet up in your thorax.  Has he an awareness on of what he's doing in this?

"Wouldn't have taken you as the sort for bribery and threats," you tell at him, tail curling from one side to the other.  If he had his knowledge of you full and deep, he'd know you for intrigued, maybe over attentive to him, but he lacks experience to read your body.

His smile on you is sharp, no shame or anger at the accusation.  "I prefer to think of it as negotiation.  I get something I want, you get something you want.  Or you deny me and I return the favor."

Curling your lip, you hide the heat flaring up in you at that. Motherfucking devious little shitblood, he has you hard pressed between magma and sea, here, and little way to get free but some real clever squirming. Heretic he may be, but (a more true and worthy adversary you will never find) he is crafty, as a mutant lowblood had to be to survive and spread his heinous gospel so far. You get your thought on hard for what words to up and pitch his way that might satisfy him. It takes a piece of time for you to be finding of an answer that suits, but you get your pan on around it eventual-like.

"I will tell all at you full honest, I could use a distraction," you grumble, and no need to fake the irritation - shit's upright embarrassing, admitting weakness to your enemy, even if it's your manipulation as much as his maneuvering. A tiny-ass piece of the truth it is that you're speaking, but no lie for that. "This motherfucking memory repeats until my sponge is like to leak out my auriculars just to get its escape on solid. Figure if I look on you a while, mayhap the dream won't slip back in right away. Least I'll up and cherish a rest from it for a time."

He gazes on you a bit before he nods. "I see. Mystifying as I find it that out of all the cruelty you've committed, this is the only memory that troubles you, it does make sense that my company could be helpful. Your company, however, can hardly be said to be equally pleasant for me, so you're going to have to offer me an incentive."

Oh, you are so ready to offer _incentive_ , you'll rip strips off him - he gives you no chance to speak.

"I will spend some time on you, and in return you will listen with an open mind as I discuss an end to this war."

"What war?" you snort at him. "No motherfucking war is there to be seen here and no fighting, except that between us and the ghouls and ogres."

His eyes narrow and he grants you a look all full of disdain. "You know perfectly well I mean outside of this dream."

Now you laugh at him - you can't help it, and holy Serpents you are mightily enjoying this. Of course he doesn't know, how could he? All sorts of pleasure will you take in enlightening him. "And as well do l mean, little heretic - "

"Call me by name or not at all," he cuts you off, hard voiced, and you hear the threat plain he does not say aloud.

Reining in your mirth as you can, you shrug lazy at him and resume. "Outside this dream, I've not seen hide nor feather of an angel in - what is it, seven sweeps since we got here?" You watch the confusion in his eyes, the flickering suspicion of you and your jests. "Elsewhere the war goes on, no doubt, but here we keep to kind and clade and the Serpents-forsaken angels are all at keeping to their trees."

"Here - where?" he breathes, and belief is growing in his eyes, his face is lit with possibility - too soon, you've said nothing at him yet as should give him reason to guess at the truth, so how is it he's got his knowledge on already?

Casual as you can manage, you shrug again, set the mystery aside. "Some island no one ever up and seen before - "

"Makekind's island!" he says, babbles in a fever of excitement, "Dolorosa's colony, it _didn't_ fail, she told me, they both - Dolorosa explained what she'd attempted, but I thought - wait. We? What are _you_ doing there?"

What in Their holy names is this motherfucking nonsense? _Dolorosa's_ colony? A scowl sets in hard on your brows even as you shut your gaping mouth. Sure, Makekind's dead, so she'd speak at what all happened that she saw, and Dolorosa sleeps, so she might get her opportunity to tell pieces of it. Thus he's heard some fraction of the truth, but what of your part in it?

Then it tickles you, the way they've lied to him by dropping you from the tale, all for the spite of you they share, and you start to grin, then to chuckle, and then you throw back your horns and howl with laughter. "Dolorosa's colony!" you gasp aloud, breathless with mirth. "Dolorosa, hark at the noise, when who's been all to ruling the place these last seven sweeps? Who has kept the jades and imps and unhatched eggs safe in the inner caverns, who saw that guards be set up top to watch if angels encroach, and arranged patrols on the outskirts to keep the ogres back? Who taught the rubellite imp all of ruling she could learn, and who," your voice drops low and pointed, "has been a-motherfucking-sleep the whole time?"

He is staring at you, rebellious and doubtful. "Dolorosa said she spoke peace with angels on the island. Do you actually expect me to believe that you are living in the same general vicinity as a settlement of angels without any attempt to wipe them out?"

"Motherfucker, I don't begin to have any concern on over whether you believe me or no. They stay up top, we keep to below. I got no need to go be at fighting them, had enough to worry at down in here." Even as they come off your tongue, the words sound off, ring false in your ears, and you know they won't satisfy. When by his knowledge have you ever turned down a chance for blood on your claws and a set of wicked-edged spells singing through the air like glory unleashed?

Sure enough, he looks on you all narrow and says, heavy in scorn, "You have no need to fight them. What's brought about this change, then? This entire wretched, bloody, pointless war has been without real need - it continues out of inertia, inherited hatred and blind prejudice! What critical difference causes a ruthless killer like yourself to _not_ needlessly slaughter your chosen enemy for once?"

The fuck can you say to that? Half-hearted, you sneer at him and look away. "Ask something as I incline to answer."

That is all at being a mistake. His eyes sharpen on you, his frown deepens. From the corner of your eye you can see how he searches your face, unsatisfied by whatever he finds there.

"I had intended it as a rhetorical question," he says finally, pinching his lips at you.  "I find it hard to believe that you are in any way affiliated with the colony that Dolorosa was trying to establish.  For one thing, a founding principle of that colony was going to be maintaining a peaceful existence cut off from the rest of the world and the war.  I cannot imagine you willingly leaving your position, forsaking your bloody service to the Condescension in exchange for _isolation_ and the _quiet life_." Those last words are deliberate and precise with sarcasm, making you prickle up in annoyance.

His narrow gaze is thoughtful, and outside the obvious suspicion, you can't get your read on of him.  It should be funny that here you are telling at him nothing but the upright truth and yet he refuses belief, but you cannot say you're well amused in this particular moment.  Flicking your wings, you growl, "None of mine if you can imagine or no, true is what's true and gives little mind to your paltry shallow beliefs."

"Isn't that fortunate," he says, and the fucker has the unholy gall to sound _bored_.  "Because it seems quite clear you're only trying to play on my credulity with this unlikely tale."

That gets at you, that riles you up fine and hot.  "You telling at me," you start low, "as you think I'm LYING?"  Your lips peel back in a snarl that has no play or mirth in its making, closer to platonic rage than you've been in sweeps. "As if I would motherfucking BOTHER at some FANCIFUL OUTRIGHT INVENTION for you, you little - " he will leave, he will _leave_ if you insult him again and this time he will not return. You swallow the words back, _heretic scum_ , _ruinous insolent blasphemer_ , and you _contain_ yourself. It does not come easy, it is stuffing a rioting trunkbeast into a very small box, but you hold your turbulent thoughts back from speech and silence the low snarl rattling in your thorax. A deep breath and you master yourself again, though your tail is lashing fierce and jerky and your wings still twitch to flare at him.

"As if I would trouble myself for thought of such a thing to tell you, for what? Your entertainment? Holy Serpents, you have no righteous notion what mirth even gets on to being! For my own jest?" Your voice is just below a snarl, and you don't bother to keep from glaring at him. "I got no need on at lies for that! I can spin your pan around in heinous wicked bewilderment with nothing but what's all up at being the most straightforward brazen verity!"

His expression is still close on at unreadable, with something watchful and still about the eyes, but his voice is flat and so unimpressed your wings mantle up automatic, you want to roar in his face. "I really doubt that."

This snarl you cannot control, it rumbles out of you deep and soft, pulsing with your breath. "Do you," you say through it. "Then doubt this, motherfucker. Without me, there would be no new colony, no safe refuge for a disorderly pile of demons sick of the war, no haven of true worship, and fuck, no living contestant for the Rubellite Throne! I heard of Makekind's plans and killed the spy who told me. I arranged that she should use the rebellion as cover for an exodus. _I_ rescued Dolorosa and the Psionic from slavery, and a glorious mirthful mess that was. The sulpherblood was special pet to the Condesce, and been drained so long he was near hatchmate to catatonic." Peaceway's eyes and mouth tighten in a flinch, but he shakes it quick under your vengeful, unsatisfied watch. "I got him out from her most private airy chamber, as no other could've done, and mighty fortunate that was, as he can support entire to himself a Web unconnected to the larger one and thereby untraceable. Useful as shit he's been, once he recovered."

Those red eyes are fixed and intent on your face, but still he makes no sign to show if he's any nearer to believing you. "And is that why you took him?" he says politely. "Because he'd be useful?"

The snarl as had almost died away surges back again. "I took him," you say, baring fangs, "because how the fuck else would I persuade Makekind to get her cooperation on in alliance with me? Not that she up and gave her full trust even then, she died fighting before I got proof to show."

He looks at you a moment, then purses his lips. "Hm," he says, dismissive, and looks away, shifting his weight. "Oddly enough, she has neglected to mention you in terms of assistance so much as treachery, but even assuming your tale to be the truth, I fail to see your motive. By all accounts, you live for blood and cruelty: the war is your joy, not something you'd seek to escape."

Double God curse him, you are tired. On and on you seek to convince him and yet he is set that you are lying, that you would exert yourself to invent and tell at him a tale so implausible when rare enough do you even resort to bending the truth at all. No surprise that he should think less of you than you are, but it is unwelcome news to you that he is so laughable dense. In memory, he was all keen thought and notable insight, sharp tongue and piercing eyes, even distracted by torment as he was in your hands. (You would not treat him so now, you and he would struggle as equals, full harsh and jet but not to maim, not to break but to test and stretch limits, each against each - )

But this is not the demon you recall. In reality, or close as death and dreaming come, it seems he is stubborn to the point of blindness. He will not see you as you are, he will not value you rightly. Though he hates you for true, it is cold and platonic, and now you see him plain, the heat of your own jet feelings is fading.

It motherfucking hurts, you are way the fuck too old to be getting your spade broken, but there it is, a dull ache against your pusher. Now what?

Sore and weary of his shit, you roll your shoulders and don't bother to look at him when you speak. "As it seems you've less interest up in you at hearing what all's passed, and more in calling it false because I speak it, I'd say there's little purpose to any further speech between us. Get you gone from here."

He doesn't move. "Hm," he says, and now he sounds intrigued, _now_ you have piqued his interest. "You have visibly fought your impulses in order to meet my requirements of courtesy, you have sacrificed a certain amount of pride and comfort, all to obtain my company - and yet having done so much to this end, you would push me away for doubting your word and intentions. Are hurt feelings really worth giving up what you've gone to some trouble to get?"

"Turns out it was never up to being worth the effort."

At the corner of his eye, you see him shake his head. "Why is it so important to you that I, of all people, take your word for truth?"

That rouses you and you turn on him, fangs bared. "You would take me as less than what I am," you growl, angry and thwarted with it. "Though I tell at you straight out what I've worked for and won, you take me for a stunted fool of an imp, _unknowing of the worth_ of truth or lie, unknowing of how to tell a _believable_ lie - " Fists clenched, you break off. "Motherfucking folly this is, why am I even speaking at it," you mutter, and slant him one last look. "I _never_ underestimated you so."

His eyes widen and you can read his face clear now, he is angered at that. "Underestimated me?" he says in disbelief. "How much of the brief time we've been in some breed of conversation, now or before, have you spent insulting me, calling me names, using only the most demeaning terms towards me? _Underestimate_. You think I'm _worthless_ , you've always thought it, no consideration for my arguments or logic, if I don't parrot every one of your fucking twisted elitist beliefs I cannot possibly have anything to say worth listening to!" He's breathing hard, wings flared, hurt as clear as anger in his face, and you...

You, so set on deception through pieces of truth, so stern in your refusal to lie, did not realize how much falsehood you spoke with every derogatory word. Worthless scum, you called him, you said so, though you knew it untrue, and he heard and believed you to think it. Little wonder he got his doubt on of your words and sincerity. Upright ludicrous flagrant hypocrite, you.

This wearisome conversation, Serpents take it, it's making your horns ache. Too many fucking sweeps on you to be dealing with this sort of emotional whiplash.

Raising a hand, you catch yourself before the cuffs tug, let out half a growl and lift the other hand as well, wind the fingers into your hair by the bases of your horns and pull gently. It helps to ease the ache, and you're not about to be rubbing at your horns with him _right there_ near you.

"Worth you up and have full well, else I'd not be wanting at your presence. I know how to motherfucking value you, Peaceway, whether or not I speak on it."

When you glance over, he is standing blank in shock, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, wings limp, but before you can even smile at it, he's shaken it off, pulled his wings close again and his face back under control. Caliborn and Calliope, you got a wicked hate for the way he up and does that all the time.

His gaze on you is narrow and hard. "Prove it," he says tightly. "After the abuse I've heard, I will not settle for a single empty assurance. Why would you speak to anyone you thought worthwhile as you've spoken to me?"

The answer, Because I _hate_ you, motherfucker, rumbles in your thorax, but you get at biting those words back before they make it out. You will not say it so, though if you speak as he demands it may up and prove little enough difference in the end. Hard to prove you have the knowledge on you of another demon's full worth and virtue without implying real clear they had your solid attention at one point, you were fixed in observation and taking full note of them. If you had some other way to be saying what he asks... but you don't.

One breath, and you start in on it. "Worth you may have, and yet oppose all I stand for, and you will not sway. Could be as you're the most persistent motherfucker I ever did know. Determined and unmovable as earth's granite bones. It's all at being powerfully inconvenient to any as disagrees with you, but I can get my recognition on that steadiness as having worth still."

He is fixed and watching, at your glance, but you see the startled edge to him and are gratified. Since he gives no sign to stop you, you keep going.

"As many as I've put to the question, never have I seen a demon up and withstand it as you did. Though you were made to shudder and cry out, you would not give over your ideals. Hard to up and ignore that sort of courage when it's to be pressing up all in your face, staring you in the lookstubs."

His eyes are wider now, focused sharp on you, though his lips ripple in a half-conscious snarl at your mention of his torture.

"Certainty of purpose you have, and the bravery to pursue it. Wit enough you had to build up to a fair load of trouble before your capture, if not enough to keep your head down - "

"I'm not an idiot any more than a coward!" he snaps at you. You were taunting him with that last, could hardly help yourself, and the angry glitter in his eyes is all at being your sweet reward. "If I didn't try to do something about the problems I saw around me, who would? The lowbloods are the ones who suffer most in the war, you highbloods weren't about to do anything to shift the status quo - " He stops himself and you can see him thinking on the news you've given him, of island and peaceful colony what you, high and terrible old as you are, had a part in making. "Which is still the case," he adds. "Even if you've built a place of safety and peace, you've only left behind the larger conflict without doing anything to mitigate it!"

Like a stunned imp, you gape at him for this sudden shift. "Your satisfaction is all to being a hard motherfucking thing to obtain," you manage, glaring. "First you had no belief for that I might up and do any such thing as you could consider good, now if you agree I did, it's still to be lacking in your sight! Do you actually get your reproach on for that I had no intent on me to end the tenacious ancient war single-handed?"

For a while he scowls at you, face unreadable. Eventually he sighs and shakes his head. "I suppose you haven't the first idea how to go about peacemaking, although I could give you a good amount of schoolfeeding on the topic. Well. So you actually helped Dolorosa." Another space of quiet as he looks on you, and you can get your read on of him now, he's not near impenetrable, and he looks edgy, confused and off from his comfort. Grudging, he says finally, "I'm impressed."

Fuck. That is not a comment you in any wise expected or were prepared for. Under your paint, you can feel your face all flushing up again, hot and exhilarated, and glower at him to cover it up. (What else did you do it for, what other reason did you truly have but for his memory? Establishing a place of true worship was a pure delightful side benefit. All for to please the image of him in your mind did you act, and now he speaks and says as he _is_ pleased, as he has no reason to say at you - )

"Why?" you growl at him.

"I would not have thought you capable of such a positive change," he says, all stiff. "At your advanced age," the delicacy on those words makes your claws itch, "change is difficult and therefore rare. Your ability to surround it is laudable."

Oh, he sounds like he thinks it, sure, he's sour and dry as old bones under the sun. Amused, you sneer at him. "Listen to a motherfucker get his flattery on."

"Flattery it is not," he says crisply. "You gave me a bit of truth and I gave a little back. Incidentally, it's your turn again."

"My turn?"

"It was your intention to persuade me that you do not consider me worthless, despite your frequent commentary to the contrary."

Fuck that in an active steam vent. Dangerous enough it was to tell at him your thoughts on him once. If you get on it again, all the more chance he'll note what you're all but spilling for him already, practically scratching little spades in the dust like a pancracked imp. "If you heard what all I said before and still believe as you're lacking of value, you can go get your bathe on in a live lava flow. Little more there's left to say."

"Quite the opposite, I think you'll find," he says, smiling pleasant so your tail lashes once in unease. "For one thing, as you're aware, I find lava enjoyable unless I'm drained nearly dead, which is no longer an issue. For another, we're not speaking of my self-worth, which I assure you is perfectly healthy. We are speaking of your opinion of me, which you badly want me to believe is higher than it has appeared. I'm not convinced yet. Try harder."

A low warning rumble starts up in your thorax that he thinks he can push you around, _command_ you, and him the lowest uncouth blasphemer as ever graced the jut. (Which is why you owe it, that you had him treated so, tortured and condemned and did not repent - _No_ , you owe him _nothing!_ ) "Give me one reason as that I should strain myself to get at securing your belief, motherfucker."

"Very well, at your request I will." His magma-red eyes go hard and sharp on you, studying your face like some vital message got coded there without your knowing on it. "Unless I honestly believe you consider me your equal, or near enough, you have no chance whatsoever at winning me for your kismesis."

... _Shit!_ He - you - How the fuck does he know?! Here you thought you up and kept it clever hid, when all the time the fucker was being to figure you out - What the lurid fuck do you do now?

"When'd you think to get your notice on of that?" you growl, wholly off balance, all twitchy as a heretic up for question.

His smile is thin. "You did mention your hatred for me before I left, and then confirmed that it was no simple platonic feeling by blushing at a compliment. I suppose it could have been a flush of anger, but your neck didn't color when you were yelling at me before. For that matter, you were quite upset when I assumed you were lying, and in both cases, why would you care what I thought of you unless I... meant something to you."

Shit. The look on his face is less than encouraging for your prospects, not that you had high chances to start with. Yet you have never been one to give in easily, and this occasion has no exception to it. Drawing a breath, you fix your gaze cool and unflinching on him, for all you want to avoid his eyes.

"So, you're wanting that I should tell at you how brave and strong and clever you get at being, is that it?" The mockery in your voice is as subtle as you can make it, but he bristles all the same.

"I could just leave," he says, biting his words short. His eyes burn into you. "Easily. I have remained out of kindness, making very simple requests which you have met barely or not at all. Though you want me to stay, you seem unwilling to fulfill my conditions, and I am forced to wonder - "

"I saved your clade," you cut him off. "Dolorosa and Psionic, they'd be enslaved yet if not for what I did for them, for you. This whole Serpents-blest colony, I had the creation of it. I guarded the exodus, I slaughtered all who pursued us, I established this place where your clade lives free, undrained, un-motherfucking-harmed, and _none_ of it did I do for the riotous whimsical novelty of it. Motherfucker, I up and did it for you."

Eyes round, he glares at you open-mouthed, and it takes him a breath or two to speak. "Then _tell me why_."

If it's wooing he needs, you will certain sure give it to him. Originally it was all at being your intention that he shouldn't know your thoughts on him to start. You'd get on your seduction of him sly and crafty, so as he'd be all anger-flustered and swayed to you before he even got his knowing of what you intended. Now that plan's out, naught is left but to weave him a web of sweet speech and hope it can tangle him into outright caliginous passion.

...Little enough hope of that. Your tongue is more accustomed to use as a weapon than in sweetness. Still, you'll make an effort at it.

After a space, you speak, voice deep and soft so he'll take you serious. "Wit you have, and determination. Endurance as well, fit to be wondered at in a lowblood. Courage to up and startle any as are inclined to expect little from such a one."

He's glaring at you, steady and unmoved. You said as much before, and he is unimpressed.

Closing your eyes, you breathe deep. "All these are marvel enough, but less than a fleck of ash weighed against the core of you, the wicked holy essence." Your eyes open and fix on him with the intensity of your words. "You do not falter. You do not give way. For all I saw done to you, you would not motherfucking back down and as maddening as I saw it then still it came back and back to me each dawn before I slept. In the midst of anguish and torment, still you worked toward your own ends and you would not still your voice. You would not be broken of your passion, we could not shatter you. All for that flame-bright will shining up in you, Peaceway."

The sound of his name makes him startle, and his wings rustle as he resettles them. He stares at you narrow-eyed, held by your words and your gaze.

"It was your will as up and caught me, kept me tangled in confusion as I stood below the jut. It should have been an upright pleasure and delight, duty well carried through, to see you die, and I could not get a clear thought in me as why it wasn't so. All for peace you worked long sweeps, all against the empress I served, so does that make it only proper, or irony for true, that after your death I had no peace?"

"I can't exactly say I regret that," he says, dry-voiced.

You snort at him. "I thought as you'd say the same. Little yearning have you that an _enemy_ should get peace on at his thoughts, alone in his pan."

Standing there, he shows no inclination to take the bait, just watches you quiet, so you go on. "All as had used to please me lost its savor, until in long sweeps' passage, not even fighting could satisfy. Eighty motherfucking sweeps you haunted me, and the double god alone has the knowing of what I'd have done if not come here. Even here I had no rest, true straight through the sleep til now." For a moment you fall quiet. "And up above dwell angels. Unharmed, unthreatened, all hiding in their trees across the whole east side of this island, and _I let them live_. Seven sweeps I have been at not shedding a drop of angel blood. All for you."

"Hm," he says. He frowns at you, tail sweeping thoughtfully back and forth. "So after my death, the admiration inspired in you by memories of my perseverance drove you to turn against your favored ruler, help steal her new-hatched descendant, and flee with a group of peace-seekers to found a colony, which has been at peace with a neighboring angel forest for seven sweeps." The skepticism in his tone is all kinds of notable. "Yet despite my impressive persistence etcetera, it did not occur to you while I still lived to, say, _not_ have me tortured and executed?"

Impatient, you growl at him. (The guilt gnaws at you, tangled up in responsibility and devotion to your duty. No choice was left to you, and yet you would it had been different - ) "Had it struck me all at once and clear to know, then I'd have seen the conflict plain between duty and desire, and as like been up and battered to motherfucking shreds caught between them. But I was spared that knowledge until it was well and truly too late, by Double God's mercy."

It hits you then, what you were spared, and the ache of it steals your breath. What if you'd realized what you might have in him, turned against your duty and spared him? He'd still be living, and likely as not in this very colony -

And yet, even for that wondrous reward, could you have turned against all that you served, even the twin serpents, for the brief extension of a heretic lowblood's life? Any such relationship would get its sicken and sour on right quick, though the salvation of a life be at its base.

"I cannot get on my regret that I held to my duty," you say, the words falling from your mouth like stones, though the speaking of them does not lighten the heaviness on you. Your head bows and all your joints and muscles ache of weariness. "I _can't_ ," you repeat, and your voice drops to near a whisper as the words tear their way free, "But I have all in me a world of regret that I up and let you die."

Honest anguish though it is, you've little hope even that can touch him, but when you look over at him he is not full of dubious scorn as he was. His eyes are narrow and considering, his wings flexing slowly. "An interesting dichotomy," he says. "One I should by rights mistrust - and yet, there is no deceit in your manner. You... regret my death."

As that gets at needing no reply, you look away.

"Apologize."

Your head snaps around and you stare at him, lips drawing back from your teeth as a warning rumble starts up in your thorax. "What?"

" _You_ are responsible for my death!" His hard voice flicks out like a whip. "If you honestly regret it, apologize to me."

Mute, you stare at him a minute, studying him close as your pusher begins to thunder against your thoraxic struts. His chin is tucked down, lowering his hilarious nubby horns in threat display, his tail lashes and his wings are twitching for to mantle up at you. His eyes are locked on your face and they _burn_. Holy motherfucking serpents above and below, he _is_ , he is up and _challenging_ _you_ , in - dare you think it's all at being in true jet sentiment?

Disbelieving joy and rage and guilt and astonishment all wind round each other and rush up through you, come pouring out your maw in a deep, resonant growl. The undertones are challenge returned, all _try me I dare you_ , and thick with yearning hatred, no point in trying to hide it now. Fuck but you hope you've got on a true read of him.

"Make me," you breathe, rumbling underneath, but your wings are controlled and loose, your tail is only flicking at the tip, and your horns tilt down the merest fraction, like you barely consider him a threat. If it's not enough to provoke him you swear you will be all at expiring on the spot, he's reduced you to the patience and fortitude of a fucking imp.

He snarls at you soft and steady, low jet tones of _out of patience_ and _claws itching for blood_ and holy fuck but you want him to lose control and go for you -

"Oh," he says, "you may be certain I will."

**Author's Note:**

> On the downside, I realize it's been a very long time, but on the upside, I'm getting really close to finishing the second chapter! I can't say how soon I might finish, but it'll definitely be posted... this year, at least?  
> 2/9/18


End file.
